


Little Secrets

by zenelly



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Fake Marriage, M/M, Mutual Pining, does it count as fake marriage if the marriage part isn't fake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:04:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenelly/pseuds/zenelly
Summary: Sometimes, even in the midst of a sprawling space opera about trying to protect the universe, life still finds just enough room for a little interpersonal angst.aka an answer to the question: "Why DID Keith have Shiro's clothes at his desert shack?"





	1. Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caseyvalhalla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyvalhalla/gifts), [sylvermyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvermyth/gifts).



> Born from a group chat with sylvermyth and caseyvalhalla that started with the question of "Why does Keith have Shiro's clothes in his shack if he didn't know Shiro was coming back" and ended with "WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING THAT HURTS" and a lot of screaming along the way! No apologies. None at all. 
> 
> This fic is about halfway done, so look forward to frequent, regular updates! I'm thinking ever other week right now, but we'll see. (I sort start a new job in the next few days, so I'm playing fast and loose with how much I can write)
> 
> Title from "Little Secrets" by Passion Pit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes people have brilliant ideas, right before the world ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do beg forgiveness for one thing: there are going to be a lot of ranks being thrown around in this fic irt the Garrison, because I don't want to make everyone either a Cadet or a Commander, so we're going with the US Navy ranks! Because classical spacenavys and all. Also, if you don't recognize someone's name that isn't a Commander rank, assume it's someone I've dragged in from something else. Have fun guessing who's who! I don't make it particularly hard.
> 
> Chapter title from "Desperate Measures" by Marianas Trench

It started, as all things do, with a bottle of tequila.

(Most things do not actually begin with a bottle of tequila, but Keith was more willing to blame the presence of alcohol than admit he had a part in what actually happened. A large one, at that. Less embarrassing for everyone overall.)

The night sky opened wide overhead, an endless promise speckled with countless stars. Keith, sitting on the edge of the roof, stared at them, at the inky darkness beyond. The base was calm at this time of night, dim and quiet. The occasional patrol guard would make their rounds, but Keith had already sequestered himself behind one of the large rooftop air conditioning units on the Garrison base, and he was familiar enough with the guards' routes that he could pull his legs up over the edge before someone remembered to look up. As long as he was quiet, no one would ever find him up here, and he'd be left to his own devices, staring at the stars and pretending that if he unfocused his eyes in the right way he could see all the way to Kerberos. Fucking _Kerberos_ , where he was going to lose Shiro for a year.

Minimal, delayed communication was all he had to look forward to. His hands _,_ laced together at the fingers, tightened as an iron band clamped hard around his lungs. He didn't like to think about it. He hadn't thought about it for the last several months, constantly putting it aside every time the mission came back to the forefront of his mind.

(He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it at all. Every quiet moment was another where Keith remembered that Shiro was about to _leave_ , and Keith could only log so many hours in the flight simulator before someone would lock him out of the system again.)

Keith forced himself to drag in one breath, then another, of dry desert air. Tried to rationalize. It was only for a short scientific voyage. Shiro should be gone for a year and then he'd be back. It wasn't actually that long. It was an honor to be chosen as the pilot for the Kerberos mission. He was overreacting. Keith could handle it.

The directionless inferno in his skin told a different story. Keith was already preparing himself for the long war against it, but it was like a man telling the tide to stop.

“ _An attitude problem_ ,” his instructors said. “ _Excellent pilot, but bad with orders_.”

“ _Just give him time,_ ” Shiro's firm voice said. “ _If you explain things to him properly-_ ”

A noise startled him out of his reverie. The door behind him. Keith jerked, then carefully poked his head around the corner, trying to see whoever it was. He didn't have to go far, though, as a familiar face made its way unerringly towards Keith's spot.

Their spot.

His and-.

Shiro.

His name didn't need a title. It was only and ever just “Shiro.”

“I thought I might find you up here,” Shiro said. A faint smile, fainter in the starlight, curved the familiar corner of his mouth, and Keith stared, trying to memorize that face and the way it seemed to reach past all the noise in the forefront of his mind and soothed him for the long months ahead. Shiro just accepted the scrutiny without comment. He lifted the bottle he had been holding and a pair of cups. “Can I sit?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Shiro did, dangling his legs out next to Keith's. They were close, maddeningly so, close enough that Keith thought he could smell Shiro's aftershave, clean and familiar. “It's a nice night out, isn't it?”

“Nice enough.” Keith tore his eyes away. Back to the infinite scope above. Safer, up there. Except for every way it wasn't. “What's in there?”

“Tequila.”

“How much of that are you planning on drinking tonight?” Keith asked, trying for levity and missing it by the trench of bitterness in his voice.

“That depends on how much of it you're going to help with,” Shiro said with a soft laugh. Keith looked over, startled, to see Shiro offering the bottle to him. “Drinking alone is a terrible idea, after all.”

“Especially right before a deep space mission?”

“Oh yes. See, it's your responsibility to make sure I don't get too drunk.”

“Shouldn't it be the other way around, Shiro? What happened to you being reliable?”

He laughed again, and Keith felt his own lips quirk in response. Shiro shook the bottle at him. “Come on. One bad decision before I have to leave tomorrow. Someone gave this to me as a going away present, and I'd rather drink it together than alone.”

The thought of refusing never came to mind. Or no, that wasn't quite right. Keith knew that the option of refusal was always there, but the idea of rejecting an offer from Shiro that he could accommodate was unthinkable in the simplest, most intrinsic way. It didn't occur to him to refuse in the way that it didn't occur to most people to breathe underwater. Simple. The cost outweighed everything.

Still, as it turned out, tequila burned like acid going down, lighting a fire straight down Keith's throat, and Shiro was a jerk who laughed at the squinched look Keith got on his face at the first taste.

“It goes down easier as you go.”

“Shit, I hope so,” Keith said, scowling.

For several long minutes, that was all it was. The two of them, passing the bottle back and forth to fill their glasses, and the fire in Keith's throat and stomach slowly grew, filling him from the inside to the tips of his fingers and toes. Their conversation meandered from training (Keith was still the top of his pilot class, earmarked for the fighters, ignoring the stares of the other few pilots in his year who were only cargo class) to the training Shiro was doing (deep space flight and maintenance, which the Holts would be providing support for, too) to how Shiro thought he would handle being around only two other people for an entire year (well enough, he supposed, though he was planning on bringing as many books as he could manage on a small tablet.

“What books are you bringing?”

“Oh, you know,” Shiro said, grinning, “Name of the Wind, The Fifth Season, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You know, something useful to really help me get to know the locals.”

“ _Shiro_.”)

-and for just a bit, between Shiro on one side and the heat inside of him, it was almost okay.

Then Keith looked back up and remembered that tomorrow, Shiro was going to be further from home than Keith was, and everything was terrible again. He breathed in, and it trembled. Shook harder on the way out, wet with suppressed tears. Keith dragged the back of his wrist across his eyes, a motion that Shiro, always concerned, always watching, noticed.

“Keith, are you okay?”

“No, I'm _not_ okay,” Keith said. Too honest. That was too honest, but he couldn't stop it. It felt safe, like this, to be brash and speak, in a way he usually tried to hold back for Shiro's sake. He looked down to meet Shiro's eyes, unsurprised to find him already looking back. “I don't-. No one else here cares about me. You know how the other instructors are. They all say I'm too hot-headed and I don't follow orders well enough.”

Shiro let out a long sigh. His gaze was warm, gentle, as he reached out to pat Keith on the shoulder. His touch lingered, a fact that Keith was greedily grateful for. “Well, you are and you don't. Those aren't bad qualities. You're independent, which means that in a combat situation, you'll be able to react faster than your other squadmates. But the brass likes it when people follow their orders. Predictable, expected behavior saves lives, Keith. Not just yours, but your squadron too.”

“If they can't keep up with me-”

“Then it's up to you, as the superior pilot, to look after them, right?”

_No,_ Keith thought with a twist to his mouth, _It's up to me to be the best so I can look after_ you. “Yeah,” is what he said out loud, though, well enough aware of what Shiro wanted to hear.

“Remember, patience-” Shiro began.

“Yields focus, yeah yeah, I know.” Keith sighed, tipping sideways. It occurred to Keith that Shiro, like him, was very drunk. Was the bottle between them empty? Seemed like it. Against him, Shiro was very, very solid and very warm, and he shifted to accommodate Keith's weight because Shiro was the _best_ and Keith was very dizzy now that he thought about it. “I just. I don't want to lose you.”

Shiro's arm, large and warm, draped around his shoulders. Shifting just that much closer to him, Keith reached up and put a clumsy hand on Shiro's chest because. It was a good handhold. Or something. He squeezed just the barest amount, enough to hopefully be imperceptible and his mouth went dry and hot at the feeling of muscle and warmth beneath his palm.

“It's just a routine mission. Five months there, two months of samples and observation and five months back. Hardly anything at all to worry about,” Shiro said. “You're not going to lose me, and I'll be back before you know it.”

Keith suddenly remembered that they were talking, and looked up. “But I could. You're gonna be out there in _space_ , Shiro. The furthest anyone's ever been. And I dunno what I'll do without you. What. What if something goes wrong? What if I never see you again?”

This, at least, was given the proper amount of attention, Shiro frowned over the edge of the Garrison as he thought about it, and he didn't seem to come to any kind of solution either.

Keith nodded, the whole world nodding with him. “See, exactly. What if... How am I gonna know that you'll come back? Safe?”

_To me,_ he didn't say.

This, too, was given very serious consideration. Shiro's hand came up to his chin and everything, even though Shiro had to repeat the motion after he hit himself in the face with his glass the first time and had to set it down. He hummed, very seriously, under his breath. Keith watched, tracing the familiar planes of Shiro's face with his eyes, even though he couldn't pick just one part to stare at. His hair looked very brown and very soft. Keith wondered what it'd feel like between his fingers if he ran them through. Between his thighs as he-

And then, interrupting Keith's steadily southward train of thought, Shiro swayed forward, eyes blinking owlishly before he grinned. “I have,” he announced very seriously, his finger tapping the tip of Keith's nose with every word, “the best idea. Ever.”

 

* * *

 

The world was ending. That was the only possible explanation for the terrible noise going on, repeatedly, loudly, very close to his head.

A voice in the doorway called, “Shiro, come on, you gotta wake up! You're going to be late if you take any longer!”

Shiro? He wasn't Shiro. Shiro was just the best, and he was _Keith_ -not-Shiro, but that didn't make his head feel less like death.

“ _Shit_. Keith, you have to let me go, okay? Hey, come on, just- there we go, okay? I know, hey-” and the noise was off, finally. Keith made a grateful noise in the back of his throat. A soft hand touched him, stroking his hair, and Keith turned his face into it. “Come in.”

“ _Wow_ , are you feeling okay? You look-”

“No I don't feel okay. I feel like my head is trying to come off my shoulders.”

“Yikes.”

“Hey, the bottle of tequila was from _you_ , don't be surprised.”

“You drank that whole thing all in one night? No wonder you look like shit.”

“Thanks, Matt. I don't look-”

“No, you look pretty terrible, Shiro. Come on, I have some painkillers and some water right here.”

The hand retreated from petting Keith's hair. He immediately hated the voice in the doorway. Especially when the bed moved and Keith lost the warmth that was half beneath him. The mattress wasn't even a passable substitute for his pillow. “Why do you-”

“Hey, buddy, you want to mess with migraines without them? No. No, you don't. Just take these and- Is that Keith?”

“Yeah.”

“....”

“Matt, don't-”

“ _Shiro_ , you didn't-”

“I'm pretty sure we just got drunk. I mean. Obviously, we drank together. I just don't think anything else happened. I remember carrying him here? Oh. Right, we were on the roof, and then-”

“....”

“Don't. Don't look at me like that, Matt. I wouldn't-”

Wouldn't what? Keith tried to drag himself closer to consciousness, but gave up with a pathetic noise. Awake hurt. Sound hurt. Life hurt. His heart, too, hurt, but somehow he expected that to be the case for a while.

“I know you wouldn't, Shiro, but I hope, for your sake if nothing else, that it really was just drinking. Though, I guess, with the two of you, I shouldn't be surprised that he ended up in your bed.”

“That's edging close to mutiny. Shut up and let's go.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

The hand, beloved, warm, calloused and so very familiar, smoothed down Keith's hair one last time. “Sleep, Keith. You'll feel better if you just rest, okay? I... I'll miss you. I have to go.”

A softer touch, on his temple, warm with breath.

Keith cracked open one, painful eye to see Shiro's blurry form retreating, and he, past the dryness of his throat, managed to say, “Shiro. Be safe.”

“I will.”

That said, Keith sunk back into the blissful nothing of sleep, a smile curling his lips.

 

* * *

 

When a red-eyed Shiro climbed into the spacecraft, trying his level best to not vomit from all the direct light and motion, with Matt and Dr. Holt at his side, Keith wasn't there. The brass was. The media was, taking pictures and video of the science team, readying themselves to go to the outer reaches of their ever-more mysterious solar system. Cadets, too, lined the walk, saluting at Shiro, proud of him as one of their own and seeing what they, too, could be.

And in them, Keith was conspicuously missing. His commanders took notice. It was another mark against him, a sign, to them, that he would fall apart without Shiro's stabilizing influence. That he was, already, showing signs of those cracks they knew were there.

As Shiro left Earth's atmosphere for what neither of them knew to be the penultimate time, Keith woke up in Shiro's bed. His eyes were gummy, aching with the light, and his mouth tasted like a graveyard. He wanted to die.

But on the bedside table was a small note, a pair of painkillers, and a bottle of water. Keith shook his head, amused somewhere past the nausea, reaching for the note first. It read:

“ _Keith,_

_Sorry I didn't wake you up. Matt swears by these painkillers, so take those and try to not feel too awful today. Go to classes. I'll see you again soon._

_Shiro.”_

Keith did as he was told, the cool water soothing his throat and the slow churning of his stomach. Tequila was harsher on him than he'd thought it would be. He remembered the rooftop, stumbling down the hallways, Shiro's voice, low and dear in his ear, the sweet swell of an uncomplicated happiness. And in his mind was the faintest memory, blurred by the haze of alcohol, of lips pressed sloppily against his.

Shiro's.

Keith touched his mouth with his fingers, imagining for a second that he could feel it happening again. Had that... really happened? It seemed so surreal, but he remembered how it was warm and soft and slightly off-center, how Shiro smiled through it and broke away laughing, pleased and happy. He licked his lips. Imagined he could still feel it.

_Huh,_ Keith thought, dazed. _Wish I would've kissed him again before he left._

 


	2. try til the morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the absence of Shiro, Keith goes on, looking forward to the day of his return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! Hooray! I got a bit impatient about posting this, because, well, why not I wanted to. Hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Chapter title from "Careful" by Guster

It was, abruptly, very different and shockingly similar all at once.

The days passed as they are wont to do, only without Shiro's warm smile filling in the gaps, coaxing Keith into eating after his workouts, pulling Keith away from the gym or flight simulator and taking him somewhere for food or a drink or to just sit. Shiro was always there, a solid reliable presence until, very suddenly, he wasn't. No one would interrupt Keith while he was overthinking. There was no one for Keith to spar with to draw them out of their own heads too. Keith had all of this concern for someone he couldn't speak to. He couldn't sit in comfortable silence while Shiro worked himself through whatever mental blocks he had. He couldn't pull out his bike and take Shiro on long night rides under the wide open desert sky, chasing freedom from both of their thoughts.

But the classes came and went as usual.

It wasn't a concern to anyone else that Shiro wasn't there. Sure, he had been the favorite of the pilot classes. Anytime Shiro came down to observe a class, everyone had puffed up, done their best, aggressively jockeying for position in Shiro's eyes.

(Position that Keith never had to fight for. Attention that was always given and received without question, both of them unerringly finding one another again, and again, and-)

 

* * *

 

“Kogane, tighten up your form! You're looking sloppy!”

Keith gritted his teeth but kept his shoulders loose as he raised the pistol, the way Shiro taught him. Directly contrary to Commander Dos Santos's directions, but-

_Bam bam bam._

Three quick shots, clustered around the vital points of the training dummy. Not his neatest work and not exactly bulls-eyes, but they were close enough that Keith felt satisfied. In the field, a shot like that would take out most anybody who tried to mess with his crew. Behind the glass, Commander Dos Santos gave him a long, stern stare. Keith readied himself for the inevitable dressing down, eyes fixed at an indiscernible point over Dos Santos's shoulder, but the Commander's attention was pulled over to someone else.

“McClain! Clean shooting, good job.”

Keith breathed out. He was off the hook from this one, at least for right now. He couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, though, and quietly, Keith moved to the back of the class, where he could be ignored for the rest of the lesson. The shooting range wasn't exactly what anyone would call peaceful, and something about the frenetic energy made Keith's hands shake as he pulled out his tablet and tapped at it, checking the calendar like seeing the date could make it pass faster. Ten months left to go on a twelve-month mission.

He could do this.

 

* * *

 

No news was good news.

Everything was going as planned. Keith replayed the short public video as frequently as he could, huddled up with it under his blanket after light's out, one earbud in as he listened to Shiro say, “ _The craft is holding up well so far. We're going through supplies at an expected rate. Gotten some good pictures of the planets we've passed, too, and I've learned that, of all things, Dr. Holt is a card shark-_ ”

-a quiet burst of protest in the background-

“ _-and if anything, Matt Holt is even worse, but we're getting by. We've already got some good data that I'm sure the Garrison scientists will find useful. Two more months to Kerberos. We're almost there.”_

It became his lullaby. The sound of Shiro's voice was sometimes the only thing calming the endless circling of Keith's mind.

“ _We're almost there._ ”

He kept his head down as much as possible, even though that landed him with gritted teeth during training to avoid snapping out at his nominal superiors. None of them made any sense. Half of his instructors weren't pilots anyway, and even if they were, they weren't _good enough_ or _fast enough_ to keep up with him. They weren't Shiro, his heart said, no matter how many times he repeated “ _Patience yields focus”_ at himself. The fact that they weren't Shiro shouldn't be important. They were still his teachers, and Shiro would want him to pay attention to them.

But Shiro was out there, in space, being a pilot. He was the best there was, and Keith was just going to have to deal with his absence and wait until he, too, could be out there beside him.

 

* * *

 

“Kogane!”

Keith felt his jaw clench immediately. He came to attention outside the simulation chamber, shoulders straightening, spine like an iron rod, face forward as Iverson marched over. To the side, there was the orange and white blur of other cadets, already clustering and whispering together, and Keith just wanted to _leave_ already.

“What the _hell_ was that in there?”

Maybe if he counted to ten, he wouldn't fly completely off the handle. Keith got to a shaky four before his better judgment deserted him. “Good flying. Sir.”

Iverson growled. “You broke formation and deserted your designated courier. What part of that was good flying?”

“The part where I took down more enemies than everyone else and _still_ got my courier ship to where they needed to be?” Keith snapped back. His gaze didn't waver from the back wall, but that didn't shield him from Iverson, sneer firmly on his face, stepping into his view.

“You deliberately disobeyed your orders in there, cadet. If I see you do this again, I will have you written up for insubordination.” Iverson's hands were crossed in the center of his back, his chest jutted out, ramrod straight, and Keith wondered, idly, what kind of punched-out noise he would make if he just _punched him in the diaphragm._ “I'm sure even you remember what another write-up will do for you?”

Keith was going to need his teeth to get looked at if he clenched his jaw any tighter. Expulsion. Of course, Iverson would return to his favorite threat as soon as Shiro was gone and Keith stepped a single toe out of line.

Of course.

“Your favorite instructor isn't here anymore to vouch for you, just remember that. You're not immune from consequences. Now. Will we be having this problem again, cadet?”

Keith clenched his fist, gripping his wrist hard enough to hurt, fighting back the urge to rail and fight and yell. His temper was a red beat in front of his eyes, furious and pulsing, and it was hard, so fucking hard, to remember the feeling of Shiro's hand between his shoulder blades, the sensation inextricably linked to that same, repetitive phrase. Patience. If he was just patient, then it would all be okay.

Iverson loomed over him, a singled, clicking step bringing him within breathing distance. Keith's hackles rose, and the only reason he didn't lash out was the tight grip he had on his own wrist in the small of his back. “Cadet? Will we. Be having. This problem again?”

Patience.

With gritted teeth, Keith said, “No, sir.”

 

* * *

 

Dodging curfew was an old game to Keith by four months in. He already had plenty of practice from before the Kerberos mission with Shiro, but after-

After, it turned from a monthly thing he did to a nigh-on nightly event, Keith slipping past the patrols of First and Second Lieutenants, past the Officers' rooms, en-route either to the roof or the Garrison garage. He stayed in the blind spots of the surveillance cameras as much as possible while he tinkered with his bike. Without Shiro, driving the desert wasn't quite the same, but he still took off every once in a while, drawn, like iron filings to a magnet. Unsettled and unknowing. He needed to _go_ , but he didn't know _where_.

Or, perhaps, it was just that the _where_ was impossible, and Keith was left, alone, wanting, desperate.

 

* * *

 

Keith hovered around the communications office, looking up hopefully every time an officer left the room. He saluted each one, hoping to hear something, anything. Had they landed? What was it like on Kerberos? Had they gotten good samples? Was Shiro sick of reconstituted peas? Were Matt and Dr. Holt driving him crazy?

(Did he miss Keith? Did he even think of Keith at all?)

But each one only nodded, accepted the salute, and moved on.

They all knew why he's here, but there was nothing. Some gave sympathetic smiles, telling him to wait a bit before information came through. They were all sure it wouldn't be too long, and Keith settled into the uncomfortable bench. He could wait. For Shiro, he thought he could do anything. Even if it ended up taking hours. Keith had homework he could work on while he waited, which made it even worse when all he ended up doing, for hours, was stare at his threaded fingers and the floor beyond them for hours while his mind raced through any number of possibilities for why it was taking so long to hear anything.

Captain Morrison stepped out. Keith jolted to his feet, hope constricting like a vine around his chest because this had to be something, Shiro had to be safe and say something and miss Keith and he choked out, “Have you-”

Kind eyes, a quiet shake of his head, and the Captain said only, “Get some rest, cadet. Lights out in ten.”

For the space of one stymied breath, Keith was a single half-step from pushing past the Captain of the entire Galaxy Garrison and barging his way into the communications room and trying to reach Shiro on his own, average grade in comm units be damned. But the breath came and went, and Keith rocked back on his heels. His lower lip caught in his teeth hard until he tasted copper.

_Count_ , he told himself. Breathe for a count of ten. Patience.

But patience did nothing for the taste of blood in his mouth. Patience did nothing for the cold sympathy in Captain Morrison's eyes, and eventually, Keith only nodded, turned on his heel, and headed straight for the garage.

 

* * *

 

The drive that night cleared his thoughts, got Keith back to a relative square-one, but when dawn came and Keith snuck back through the gaps in the patrols and security cameras, dusty and coated in sand, there was still no word from Kerberos.

There was nothing he could do but wait.

But oh, fire and anxious energy crawled beneath his skin, setting him alight. Rest was a distant, impossible dream. All he could do was wait outside the office every moment of every day and stare at every officer that left before returning his gaze to the book open on his lap. Not his homework, still due and still undone, but a book on radios and communications.

If they couldn't get hold of Shiro, Keith thought, staring uncomprehendingly at the radio relay diagrams on the page, then _he_ would have to.

“-ssion from Kerberos! Commander, come quickly, it's-”

A cold bolt of fear slammed into him. Keith jolted up and over, to the door, to the slightest crack in its side where Keith could press his ear and hear better. Feet, pacing from side to side, many pairs of them. Something must have come through. The communications team was scrambling. Keith breathed out, unsteady. He had to stay calm.

“The crew?” he heard Iverson ask, and damn it, his heart was in his ears immediately. _Shiro._ He had to focus. He had to listen past its terrible, stuttered pounding, the sick sensation in his stomach.

“No sign, sir. The crew is... gone.”

“All of them? There's nothing from any of them?”

“...No sir. The ship isn't picking up anything from them, and I can't get a read on their suit vitals either.”

He couldn't have heard that right. He. He had kept his ear to the ground for any bit of news, and he'd known that something, something hadn't been right. The few days delay, the sudden tension in the air from the higher-ups in the garrison; was this why? But Shiro couldn't just be dead. There was no way. Then a fire built, denying, because he would've _known,_ wouldn't he? If Shiro was- If Shiro was gone, Keith would have _known._

 

* * *

 

(He wished he could say that he knew.

He wished, desperately, with a fire and fervor that consumed him, that he had known the moment it happened. It was just supposed to be a routine mission. Exploratory. Nothing new or unexpected aside from the vistas and data they gathered. It wasn't supposed to end Keith's world. He wished he had felt a pull to the sky, a call, a yearning, a knowing as Shiro was brutally ripped from him, further than any of them had ever expected.

That pain came later.)

 

* * *

 

Everything after- _After_. Everything _after_ was completely different. Somehow, knowing that Shiro existed somewhere in this miserable shithole of a universe made it worthwhile, and knowing now that he wasn't, that he didn't-

Nothing made sense.

Nothing would ever make sense again.

 

* * *

 

Living was moving through fog. Keith dragged himself to class because he didn't know where else to go, but that never meant he retained anything. He sat in his chair for hours, staring either at his desk or out the window or anywhere, really, while his mind just. Existed. Not even wandered. Wandering implied that there were thoughts where instead there was only a howling abyss.

“-gane.”

Imagining a hell worse than this was impossible. Keith stared at the curl of his fingers on the desk, the tiny creases at each knuckle. Tiny silver scars dotted his skin here and there, a hazard of training, and Keith turned his hands over to find each one. Shiro had bandaged this one, here on the heel of his hand, a worried pucker between his brows. He had sighed over this one on his finger before finding the antiseptic and band aids, and-

“Kogane!”

Oh.

His attention gained, Keith looked up. Commander Ryu was making a sympathetic expression, but he waved at the door, where a First Lieutenant hovered. “You're being called to the Captain's office. You're dismissed.”

Keith stood. Didn't bother saluting, which caused a quiet stir around him, but Commander Ryu had always been more lenient with him than, say, Iverson, who wasn't lenient with anyone. He gathered his supplies with numb hands and wordlessly followed the officer to Captain Morrison's office. Luckily, he wasn't made to wait, just shown right in.

Captain Morrison's shoulders were slumped, lines heavy down his face, but he still mustered a congenial smile for Keith when he came through the door. Gesturing Keith into a seat, he began to shuffle papers around on his desk, moving one stack here and there as he searched through the relatively mild mess. “Cadet, we called you here to give you the news. After some thorough investigation of the Kerberos mission and the accident there,” and here, Captain Morrison let out a heavy sigh, “the Galaxy Garrison has officially declared Takashi Shirogane and the other members of the Kerberos mission missing, presumed dead.”

Keith's heart stopped, as it did every time he had heard. He knew. It didn't stop being heartbreaking. But Morrison had paused there, clearly expecting some kind of answer. Keith swallowed past the lump in his throat once, twice. Asked, voice thick with unspoken emotion, “What about it?”

Gently, the Captain said, “I know this must be hard to hear, but. As his husband, you are his next of kin. All of his belongings go to you. There are arrangements for his pension to go to your account too, once Accounting gets their paperwork in order, but they'll need-”

“Wait, what?” Keith asked again, for entirely different reasons.

Morrison paused, hands on a few sheets of paper he was preparing to pass over to Keith. “His effects. Since he's been declared dead, his belongings go to the next of kin, which, since you're legally married, is you. All I need right now-”

“No, no, I got that much.” Keith set shaking fists against his knees, pressing hard to make something in this room feel real. “What do you mean, “husband”?”


	3. you're all i have

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And for a single, perfect moment, they were together, and they were happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't have much to say here except enjoy! Have fun with the cameo in this one, and kudos to you if know you who it is (it's not hard to figure out).
> 
> Chapter title comes from "You're All I Have" by Snow Patrol

Keith slapped the – the paper (he couldn't bring himself to call it a marriage license because that was- too much. Too real) onto the desk in front of a very surprised looking Second Lieutenant Mulcahy, who blinked owlishly at it before looking up at Keith.

“Yes?” he asked, mild, adjusting his glasses.

“You _married_ us?”

Lieutenant Mulcahy, the chaplain of the Galaxy Garrison, smiled serenely, if a bit sadly. Keith hated it, hated the expression in a way that he couldn't put words to, the simple smile igniting a core of rage he thought had extinguished. “No, no, you and Lieutenant-Commander Shirogane only married each other. I officiated, yes, and I do understand that it was in a bit of a rush but-”

“We were drunk!” Keith protested. He didn't know what he was doing. Nothing made sense anymore. This didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. It never would. He didn't know why he was so hung up on this. Shiro was-

“But very sincere.” Mulcahy took the paper, holding it up with that same serene sadness that Keith was starting to think was just his default expression. “Who was I to deny you both, when he was going to be gone for so long? Everyone knows how much you two care, ah, cared for each other.”

And that was all it took.

That little shift from present to past tense.

Keith's next breath trembled on the verge of a sob, a dry, heaving sort of noise, and he clasped a hand to his mouth, shaking his head violently back and forth. No. _No._ This wasn't, this couldn't just be _over_. Not like this, not so soon. Not _Shiro_. First his mom, then his dad. Now this? Hadn't the world already taken enough from him?

Father Mulcahy's hand touched, warm, on his shoulder, and Keith violently recoiled. Static sparked from the contact, skittering its painful, uneasy way down his skin, and it hurt, his stomach twisting as static overtook his body. No. His back hit the wall, cool metal chilling even through his shirt, and Keith slid down, his legs giving out. Married. He was married to Shiro. And all he had, now, was a single, grainy memory of a drunken kiss, the hollow tear of grief in his stomach, and, apparently, all of his _dead husband's belongings._

Nonsensically, all Keith could think as he shook and spiraled out of his skin, was that he hadn't even gotten a honeymoon.

Mulcahy waited, patient and kind, until Keith was done, until the world reformed in static chunks around him, offering no censure, only patience. Keith wished he could drag even a measure of that peace inside himself. Maybe it could settle him.

“Would you like some tea?” Father Mulcahy offered, hands already moving to fix up a cup.

Wordless, Keith pulled himself from the ground. He staggered a moment, legs weak and unable to really hold himself up, before pouring bonelessly into the empty chair before Mulcahy's desk. A small mug of clear brown liquid, fragrant, was set in front of him. Reflexively, Keith curled his hands around it. The warmth was welcome, something to focus on that wasn't inside his own head, and he held onto that, letting the steam waft up over his face, dampening and curling the ends of his hair.

A hiss of paper.

Keith looked up to see Mulcahy slide the marriage license (and that hurt, that still hurt, hard enough and deep enough that Keith thought it might never stop) across the desk to him. “I think,” he said, in his careful way, “that you might want to hold onto this. It isn't much, but. It's something to keep. I know this didn't end the way either of you wanted it to, but please remember that you were happy together, and that you do, at least, have this much.”

With shaking hands, Keith reached out and dragged the damning evidence closer. It wasn't much, that was fucking true. But this little piece of paper meant that everything Shiro owned went to him, not some nameless nobody, not auctioned off to people who didn't, couldn't care about _Shiro_ and only wanted his legend.

“ _I have the best idea. Ever_ ,” Shiro's memory whispered.

And looking at the license, at the slant of his own uneven, scrawling signature, Keith finally remembered.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, what's this great idea?” Keith asked.

“If we get married, right now,” Shiro said with the kind of seriousness that came from the steadying influence of alcohol and a very good idea, “then you'll definitely get me back after the mission!”

Keith tried to focus on the finger still resting at the end of his nose and failed, laughing a little when he just got very cross-eyed instead. He smiled up at Shiro, heart fluttering somewhere around his throat. “That makes... sense. Yeah. Good husbands always come home and you-”

“And _I_ would be an excellent husband!” Shiro cheered. “Exactly!”

Keith considered it, very seriously. Hand on chin and everything, rubbing his barely-there stubble. A warmth that wasn't booze filled him, lighter than air, bubblier than champagne. Exciting and new, like an evolution of how Shiro made him feel normally. “Are you sure? I mean, it's. Me. And marriage is-”

“Keith.”

Shiro grabbed his hands.

Keith blinked down at his and Shiro's clasped hands and prayed that the heat in his face was just his imagination and not a terrible blush. He wasn't drunk enough to think otherwise, but maybe in the dark it wouldn't be so noticable.

“Keith,” Shiro said again, and this time, Keith heard the quiet plea to look at Shiro. He mustered his courage and met Shiro's dark, caring eyes, and Shiro smiled at him. Keith's heart flipped over in his chest. “I wouldn't even think about getting married to anyone except you. I know what I want.”

_Do you_? Keith almost asked. The words were right there, but.

It was so much easier to ignore them and nod. Because if Keith had to pick one person, it would only ever be Shiro. It would always be Shiro, who had looked after him, who _understood_ him, who needed him in a way no one else seemed to even see. No one else saw the moments when Shiro looked for support except Keith. Keith was always there for Shiro, and this would just be that, but more official.

Keith pulled one arm free. Shiro's face fell imperceptibly, before Keith grasped their joined hands, making a strange Shiro-Keith-Shiro-Keith sandwich between the two of them. “I gotta hold onto you just as much as you hold onto me,” he joked, and Shiro's eyes lit up, his mouth curving with a beautiful smile, and Keith, without letting himself think, said, “Yes. Marry me. So I don't ever lose you.”

 

* * *

 

“I'm not taking your name,” he warned in a loud whisper on their wobbling way down the halls. Shiro had an arm around his waist and Keith had one around Shiro's shoulders, and honestly, they were doing pretty well together, for all that they had run into both walls in this very unstable hallway at least twice. Each. Look, walking would be a lot easier if the ground would just. Stop. Moving.

“What, you don't wanna be Keith Shirogane?”

“Do you want to be Takashi Kogane?” Keith shot back, the shape of Shiro's first name unfamiliar and beloved in his mouth.

Shiro stopped them to think it over, leaning his head against Keith's. Keith took the opportunity to selfishly shove his face against Shiro's neck. So much skin contact, grounding every bit of tingling electricity building through Keith. This was why Shiro was the best. He made everything make sense. An axis, around which the rest of the world revolved.

“Nah,” he said finally. “I like my name. And I like your name too.”

“So Keith Kogane and Takashi Shirogane it stays?”

“Yeah. But we're still gonna be husbands. I need- Oh! Keith, I gotta. A ring!”

Keith laughed into the warm curve of Shiro's throat and daringly placed a soft kiss there before pulling back. Shiro regarded him with reverence, a soft, unknowable smile darting around the corners of his mouth, and Keith could only smile back. “Just get me one when you come back. You'll have a year's worth of backpay to pick up then. You can get me something nice.”

“Okay. Okay,” Shiro agreed. “Pick something out that you'd like? So I know what sort of thing to get you.”

“Are you saying you don't already know what you'd get me?”

And Shiro smiled, smiled, smiled, secret and bashful, and Keith took the daring welling inside him to stroke the soft brown fluff of his hair, to cup his cheek. “No,” Shiro said. “I know already. I just want to know if I'm right.”

“Then get it for me when you get back, and I'll tell you,” Keith said.

(It would be perfect. No matter what it was, it would be perfect, he knew already.)

 

* * *

 

It was a very confused Lieutenant Mulcahy that opened the door a few minutes later, after some furious and uncoordinated knocking from the two of them, but he let them into his quarters without any hassle, trying to smooth down sleep-tousled blond curls and failing. Mulcahy adjusted his glasses, peering at Keith and Shiro.

“Now, what brings you two fellows down here at this time of night? Must be very important.”

“We need to get married,” Shiro said in a rush.

Keith felt himself heat up hearing it again.

“Keith and I,” Shiro waved between them, “we gotta get married. Tonight. Because I leave in the morning, and he has to get me back. After. I don't want to leave him here alone, so if we get married, he'll always have me. And I'll have him too.”

Lieutenant Mulcahy looked at Shiro, then at Keith, one eyebrow raised. “Is this what you want too?”

“More than anything,” Keith said, honest, too honest, unable to look anywhere except take in Shiro's beautiful, wonderful face. But he couldn't regret it when Shiro looked back and smiled, equally captivated.

“Well! It _is_ rather unorthodox,” Mulcahy began slowly.

Words flooded Keith's mouth at even the slightest hint of hesitation. Sure, it was unorthodox, but it was him and Shiro. It was Shiro and Keith, that was. That was the only way it could be. He had to know that Shiro was going to take care of himself enough to come home, and that meant giving Shiro a reason to come back. Shiro would do what was best for his crew, always, and Keith would just have to do what was best for Shiro. He drew breath, ready to say it-

And then Mulcahy tapped the side of his nose, a sly smile on his face that was so incongruous with the twinkle in his eyes. “But I think the big guy upstairs won't mind if I pull a few strings.”

Shiro grinned, wide, open, happy. “Big guys,” he clarifies. “The brass won't be too pleased with this, probably.”

Mulcahy waved a hand. “They're never pleased. This can just be something else for them to be unhappy about. Now! Let's see about getting the two of you married! I have the papers right here-”

 

* * *

 

It was, in the end, a very simple affair. Neither of them were particularly religious, so Mulcahy went with a plain lead in about devotion and giving and patience that made Shiro quirk a knowing grin in Keith's direction. Keith and Shiro traded vows while trying carefully not to fall over, hands clasped in the middle of Lieutenant Mulcahy's quarters. The vows were almost entirely comprised of whatever came to mind first (“-and I'll be with you when you get sick and snotty and gross and stop listening to what anyone has to say about reasonable limits,” Shiro said.

Keith made an offended noise in the back of his throat before shooting back, “And _I'll_ be with you even when you stay up until four in the morning going over simulation results and almost put orange juice in your cereal.”

“That was once!”) but they were genuine, filled at the cracking edges with laughter, just as it was between them, and Keith couldn't help but flush because Shiro's gaze never wavered, never strayed from his face the entire time, eyes warm and dark.

“In sickness and in health,” Shiro said solemnly near the end.

“And in the terrible hangover we're both gonna have,” Keith added. Father Mulcahy was probably laughing at them, but he did it very solemnly, which the sober-Keith holding the reins in the back of his own mind appreciated.

“Yeah, that too. For ever and always, I will be yours.”

Keith smiled, crooked. “Until death do us part?”

“Until death do us part.”

“I now pronounce you husband and husband! You may kiss your groom,” Father Mulcahy said. That was like the proverbial gunshot at the races as Keith leaned forward, and-

The last of Shiro's self-control snapped, and lips were on his, warm and consuming. Keith clung to Shiro, opening easily, hungrily to his mouth, kissing like the tide coming in. Push forward, linger, pull back, surge forth once more, and Keith could hardly hear Mulcahy's fond, embarrassed laughter over the sound of his own heartbeat. Keith held onto Shiro's shoulders, his arms, fingers clutching and dragging down his back, because this, the warm, wet, slightly off-center contact of his mouth and Shiro's, was the axis of the entire universe, and weren't they so clever? To have this all to themselves?

And for a single, perfect moment, they were together, and they were happy.

 

* * *

 

Keith looked at the paper between his hands. It creased in places around the dimples of his fingers, and he smoothed them out as best he could. A single night. That was all it had amounted to, and even then, it had just been pouring themselves into bed and sleeping beside each other before morning came, too early as always. His heart ached and ached, unceasing. A pain he would just have to live with from now on.

“Thank you, Father,” he said, finally. “For. Answering, I guess.”

“No trouble at all, my son,” Mulcahy murmured, gentle as ever. He took the cold mug of tea from Keith, going to rinse it out in the little sink he had. “I'm always available. Please, come to me if you ever need guidance, or if you just want to talk.”

But there was a desert in Keith's lungs, centered around the decaying burn of his heart, and all he could do was nod. He had no words. He had nothing at all, anymore, and it was with slow, dragging steps that Keith made his way to his room and laid numbly there until, eventually, sleep took him in a gentle gray wave.

 


	4. the night runs right into the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (He was right.
> 
> In that moment, all Keith could think, with a dizzying relief, was that he was right and he had never been happier.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry, guys, this chapter fought me every inch of the way and I hated how it turned out the first go around, so I had to, you know, scrap everything and start from scratch :\
> 
> But! It's here now and I like it much better, so! Onwards! Hopefully, I'll resume an every-other-weekly posting schedule again (though next month IS NaNo, so if I fall off that particular wagon, I'll have something to blame!)
> 
> Title of this chapter comes from "I Will Be Back One Day" by Lord Huron. Thank you all for your continued support!

Two boxes.

The sum of a man's life in the Garrison could be packed, neatly, into two boxes that now stood, unopened, in the corner of Keith's room. It had been weeks since they showed up, and Keith’s bunkmate was already making noises about Keith leaving them there, but whatever, it didn’t matter.

Shiro wouldn't like Keith going through his belongings.

Or maybe he would. He would want to be remembered. Keith owed him that much. So maybe it was actually just. Keith. Not wanting to go through the meager remains of Shiro's belongings because that was too much. He could avoid them as much as he wanted, but they were still there. Every time he woke, came back from class, Keith saw them again, looked at the labels on them, marked plainly with “Clothes” and “Assorted Other,” because the Garrison couldn't really get more detailed than that, could they?

Keith didn't know.

There was so much he hadn’t known and could never get back, and god, he wished he could not know again.

Days slipped away into a formless void, the spaces between everything made hazy. Keith slept little, and not at all restfully. He catnapped where and when he could, a few minutes snatched during classes, during the middle of the night when he could no longer drag his eyelids open. Father Mulcahy tried, Keith thought, to get him to take a break, but.

There was no break.

There was only perseverance. There was only the quiet sound of Shiro’s voice in his ear, whispering “Patience yields focus” as Keith adjusted his stance for firing, as he piloted blindly, as he stared at the stars and prayed with the silent desperation that filled him to overflowing.

There was only the wait. Terrible and neverending as Keith waited for death to take him too.

The whispers began.

A pilot error.

Keith fought the first, second, fourth, tenth, _every_ person he heard say it, grabbing all of the startled cadets and officers by their collars and hoisting them up and  _fighting_ because even if he never felt Shiro's passing, he  _knew_ this much like he knew the weight of his bones, intrinsic, unthinking. Shiro wouldn't have made a mistake like that. He couldn't have. He was too good of a pilot for there to be an error like that.

(And, a voice whispered, if it  _had_ just been pilot error, they would have released more information. They would be letting the pilots study it. To ensure that they wouldn't make the same mistake, never mind that Shiro was the best of them. That's just what  _happened_ , and instead, there's nothing except a single piece of paper with Shiro and Keith's names on it, two boxes of clothes and assorted items, and a bunch of  _fucking idiots_ who couldn't tell the difference between the command console and their own asscheeks.)

“ _Kogane, what's the matter with you?_ ” The question was a phrase, a refrain he heard too often, and he wanted to break the jaw of every officer who spoke.

Red marks piled up. Keith knew what the officers were saying about him now, knew the mutters of discipline issues were becoming only louder, but at the same time, what was this garbage planet  _worth_ if Shiro wasn’t on it? How was he supposed to see the value in a planet that let Shiro fall and blamed it on a  _fucking pilot error_? It was impossible, and so Keith didn’t try.

He just fought.

With a furiously kindled fire, he fought for the last name he didn’t take and the ring that wasn’t there on his finger, and there was no firm voice to bank it, to pull him back, to make him stop. No mantra of patience yielding anything other than the gaping maw of grief and pain. Mulcahy tried to help in the ways he could, which weren’t many. Keith didn’t want to talk about what he had lost, after all. He couldn't bring himself to face the reminder of what he hadn't even known he had. 

(He knew that the denial was worse, but it was all he had, damn it, and Keith would dig his claws in as deep as necessary to keep something worthwhile close. A slip of paper, however, couldn't bear his weight.)

“This new simulator…” he overheard a tech say as he prowled the hallways late one night, and Keith slowed to a stop outside the training room, listening. “Are they really sure it’s a good idea?”

“It’s just a search and rescue. It’s like this place is making their own Kobayashi Maru, that’s all,” a different technician said. Keith peeked around the corner, spotting the two of them fussing with some wiring outside the simulation chamber. “What they’re doing just makes it more personal. I mean, there’s no one who hasn’t heard about it, and it’s a good drill.”

The first tech made an uncertain noise. “I guess. But it still seems disrespectful. Hey, Alvaredo, try it now.”

“Okay.”

Unseen, probably inside the simulation chamber, Alvaredo turned on the simulation, and Keith’s eyes darted to the display screen that monitored the inside of the set-up. Alvaredo, sitting in the pilot’s seat, leaned forward, switching on a few levers and switches here and there before, with a flash of blue light, the simulation abruptly began. 

A dry, mechanical voice spoke. “You're on a rescue mission to Kerberos-”

Keith didn't hear the rest of it. The roaring in his ears was too much. He took one step. Two. Three, an increasing tempo, and he barely registered the startled shouts of the two technicians. Hands pulled at him. Deftly, shaking from head to toe with a fury that was incandescent and blinding, Keith shook them off. He threw one, a hold Shiro had taught him in hand-to-hand. Knocked the other out with the butt of his dagger's hilt. The voice, finally, cut off when he plunged his mother's knife into the depths of the wires and circuitry. He went wild then, reaching and tearing and rending.

When he came back to himself instead of the shaking whirlwind of rage that consumed him, it was to the Garrison's MPs rifles staring him in the face, Commander Iverson's disapproving expression just beyond. 

 

* * *

 

(“You’re dismissed.”

Keith shook, head to toe, as he stared, uncomprehendingly, at Commander Iverson. His hands, clasped in the small of his back in parade rest, tightened.

"I-" he started. Stopped. Licked his lips. Patience. "I don't-. Please, Commander, I- I can't-"

"I know your ears work, cadet," Iverson said, firm and cruel with it, his eyes hard. His mouth was firm and unsympathetic. He seemed disappointed, but distant. Nothing was being mourned except the loss of Keith's skills, but. "My mind, and the mind of the other officers, has been made. You. Are. Dismissed. You have two hours to gather your belongings. You will find the paperwork with HR after this, at which point your two hours begins. Do you understand?"

Keith's mouth worked soundlessly. He drew a breath.

Why did none of this feel real?

The world was crashing down around him, and Keith could only wonder if this was his slow descent into death too.

He tried, again. He couldn't not. "Sir, please, don't... don't do this. I can-. I can focus, I promise, I just-"

"Do. You," Iverson said, cold. "Understand. Cadet?"

Keith stared. He drew a shaking breath. And with numb lips, he said, "Yes, sir.")

 

* * *

 

After that, nothing meant anything at all. He had his belongings, stuffed into a few boxes of their own alongside Shiro's now. He had his bike, and his knife. 

He had nothing else.

Mechanically, Keith remembered to eat when he was hungry and sleep when he was tired, but those feelings came at inconsistent intervals. He finally cracked one day, when the loneliness was a drying force caking his throat, clogging every breath he took with despair. Keith, hands trembling, opened one of the boxes of Shiro's things and dug until he found a shirt. It still fucking  _smelled_  like him. Keith hadn't even realized that he knew, without question, what Shiro smelled like. 

It would take a stronger person than Keith to resist wearing it. Even if it meant waking with salt dried around his eyes and cheeks.

He didn't, couldn't, go far from the Garrison, spending time and the remnants of his severance money in the town near the base. He couldn't leave. It felt wrong to leave, and in lieu of anything else, Keith threw himself into that feeling.

Eventually, he found an old, dilapidated building while riding his bike, and something in his bones settled, knowing that this was right, the he was  _close_ , and it was the closest thing he knew to a purpose again. 

Most of what happened after he found the abandoned shack in the desert, Keith honestly couldn't recall. Days blurred together into a meaningless scramble. He lived on feeling, on the insistent pull in the desert that blocked out the screaming chasm of grief and pain within him. If there was something to do, then there was a way forward. The carvings became his magnetic north, and Keith threw himself into understanding them so he could stop thinking about the thin piece of paper with his name and Shiro's, side by side.

Soon.

Something would come, here, and that possibility drove Keith forward.

That was what all of them were saying now.

Soon. Soon. Soon.

He had a time, even, vaguely, a place. He spent his days readying supplies, explosives, his bike because he would need to get in and get out  _fast_ and the Garrison was close enough by that he would have to fight them for the privilege first. Soon. Keith just had to be ready for the day, the moment, it came.

_Patience_ , he thought, and out here, it was somehow easier to bear.

 

* * *

 

A burning pod fell through Earth's atmosphere.

On the Garrison rooftops, three cadets followed it in wonder before klaxxon alarms blared and the Garrison mobilized. The three, too, curious and nosy and driven, slunk out of the compound to follow it, pulled by a certainty that none of them understood.

Out in the desert, Keith lowered his binoculars. He pulled up the mask covering his nose and mouth, double-checked to make sure his knife was carefully tucked into its sheath at the small of his back, triple-checked that all the explosives he had ready were secure on his bike. He breathed out. Even if he couldn't do anything about Shiro, he could do something about this. Whatever it was. It was important.

It had to be.

The time was now.

 

* * *

 

(He was  _right_.

In that moment, all Keith could think, with a dizzying relief, was that he was  _right_  and he had never been happier.)

 

* * *

 

Keith's skin burned. 

Every inch of Shiro's solid weight pressed against him lit Keith up with tingling awareness, and he couldn't stop himself from checking Shiro's breathing, his pulse, his skin, his body, his heart, because he was  _there_. Shiro was  _there_  and he was  _alive_. Somehow, some way, Shiro had  _survived_. He couldn't stop staring. Keith had the other pilot, the mouthy one, open the door to his shack, because he refused to let Shiro go for even a moment.

"You're alive," he murmured under his breath. Once, then again and again, shaking fingers finding Shiro's pulse-

And encountering only warm, humming metal.

Right.

Another thing that was different, and there was already so much.

"Sit down wherever," Keith told the cadets, gesturing around his cramped shack. Even more cramped now that there were four additional bodies, but one of those bodies was Shiro and he would stop welcoming them the moment that fact stopped being remarkable. Carefully, he directed Shiro to sit on the futon Keith usually slept on. His hands fluttered, touching biceps and shoulders with scattered intention.

(Shiro was  _alive_.)

He seemed exhausted though, his eyes unfocused and drifting, and Keith's mouth pressed sideways. "Hey, Shiro?"

"Mm?"

"How about we get you changed, alright?"

Shiro nodded, then again more vehemently, grabbing the grubby brown sack he wore and tugging it, with no small amount of difficulty over his head. 

Breath stuttered in his lungs. Had... Had Shiro only gotten  _more_  muscular while he was away? What... What had  _happened_ while Keith wasn't there to look after him? Scars criss-crossed across the broad planes of Shiro's chest and abdomen, some small and familiar, others large and a still-healing pink, like the one across his nose. Keith licked his lips, looked away. Not the time.

But for once, he could be grateful for two boxes, for the cruel turn of fate the Garrison had bestowed on him. Keith dug in the one of Shiro's clothes and pulled out a frequently worn sleep shirt, one of Shiro's favorites from before. He got Shiro changed, settled onto his side with a murmur of comfort, and when Shiro drifted off into an exhausted, half-sedated sleep, Keith made himself comfortable. The noises of other, unfamiliar people filled up every atom of air, louder than Keith had dealt with in months.

It was a long ways still until dawn, and he would not move an inch.

He wouldn't stop watching. Not again.

 

* * *

 

Keith came to with a start when he almost slipped off his chair. Heart pounding, he righted himself, looked around. The cadets were all still asleep, worn out, and Keith marked them, one, two, three, quickly, before dismissing them. They had helped, as much as they had also gotten in the way, and they weren't really his concern.

But when Keith looked at the futon, it was empty of any occupant.

Panic slammed into him like G-forces on liftoff. Keith lunged out of his chair, searching the interior of the cabin feverishly. No, not here, not there either, maybe-

Outside.

Outside, he  _had_  to be outside, and Keith stumbled to the door-

Only to come to a stop as soon as he opened it.

Shiro.

Backlit by the faint pink dawn, he stood on a small hill nearby, his left wrist in his right hand, as though touching the unfamiliar prosthetic would make it take a recognizable shape. Just looking at him was enough to settle Keith's heart from its panicked thunder. Careful, he told himself.

Patience, he thought once more.

When he approached, Keith made certain to make noise, letting Shiro know he was there. There was a brief tensing of Shiro's shoulders until he turned and saw Keith, and recognition relaxed them again, Shiro giving Keith a faint, slightly pained smile. Keith stepped up beside him. Close. Close enough that the morning wind brought the scent of Shiro's skin to Keith. Close enough that he could imagine the pressure on his skin to be heat from Shiro's body. 

No closer.

They spoke there, briefly, and Keith wanted to take that last step to bring them together, to see if Shiro still kissed as gently as he had when they were married, to know if Shiro remembered that night too, but.

Shiro didn't, couldn't, remember much of anything at all, he admitted with a quiet weight.

And immediately, Keith knew. He couldn't tell him. Not about the marriage, at least. Privacy, true privacy, was needed so Keith could explain what they had done in a semi-drunken stupor and until then, well. This would just have to be something that Keith carried, a burning weight that threatened to suffocate, but he saw the shadows and confusion in Shiro’s eyes, over the new scar and below his new white forelock, and-

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t do it. Not now. They would have time to talk about it later. They would. Shiro came back, after all. Everything else could wait, at least until Shiro knew he was safe again and that haunted look escaped him. Keith took a deep breath and reached out to gently touch Shiro’s shoulder, turning him back towards his shack. “There’s something you need to see,” he said.

 

* * *

 

The final time they left Earth's atmosphere, damn it, this time, Keith went with Shiro. He wouldn’t be left behind again. This time, Keith would make sure Shiro was safe.

He would keep his husband safe.


	5. stasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was all tangled up. Before and after. Shiro wasn’t the same as he was when he drunkenly pressed laughing lips to Keith’s own, and Keith was different after those long months of nothing and nothing and pain and grief. It was probably too much to hope for more. Especially since there were new shadows in the corners of Shiro’s eyes that he still never wanted to talk about. Or perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to talk about them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh i'm so sorry this took so long to get out. I went through so many drafts of this chapter because nothing felt right. Hopefully this one is enjoyable. Thank you all for your patience.

“Zarkon’s forces are en route to Cassian-“ Allura was saying, her eyes intent and her hands focused as she manipulated the star map to highlight a system.

The blue lights denoting systems and stars swirled around them, and from his position near the back of the group, Keith saw approximately none of it. Or, rather, not any of the parts he was supposed to. He was distracted by the way the light hit Shiro's cheekbones. It dappled Shiro’s skin, lighting him up with a faint glow, and Keith found his eyes caught on the curve of Shiro’s neck and his shoulders again. His mouth. Again and again, always.

It was so much easier to watch Shiro than it was to look anywhere else.

 “-we come in with the Red Lion flanking the Galra cruiser, you should be able-“

Right, flanking. Alright, Keith was good at flanking. It used Red’s superior mobility to his advantage, but god, Keith hated being apart from Shiro, who would probably be leading the charge in. The Lions’ shields were good, incredibly good for what they had to stand up to, but one stray shot, while Keith wasn’t there to look after Shiro, could end in disaster. If he finished his run on the cruiser fast enough, he’d be back before anyone thought to get past Shiro’s shields though. It would be fine.

Keith’s fingers tightened in the folds of his jacket.

He would be right there with Shiro. No one could make him disappear again.

Had that scar behind Shiro’s ear always been there? Or was it new? Keith couldn’t remember. He wasn’t sure if he had stared at it before, wanting to press his thumb against it, his mouth. He didn’t know.

It was all tangled up. Before and after. Shiro wasn’t the same as he was when he drunkenly pressed laughing lips to Keith’s own, and Keith was different after those long months of nothing and nothing and pain and grief. It was probably too much to hope for more. Especially since there were new shadows in the corners of Shiro’s eyes that he still never wanted to talk about. Or perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to talk about them.

“Keith?”

He jerked his attention back, finding Allura staring at him, her eyebrows raised in a quizzical line. Shit. Everyone else was also staring, and Keith felt his face heating up. Uh. Right. He needed to be paying attention to this. Not- Not Shiro. Swallowing, he nodded. “Yes, Princess?”

“Did you get all that?”

He hadn’t, but Keith wasn’t about to ask for clarification in the face of that terrifying arched brow. He nodded anyway. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry, Princess,” Shiro said, firm and decisive and Keith’s eyes moved back to him with no further input from his brain. A safe and comfortable place to land. Shiro always was. “We’ll go over the plan again when we’re approaching the convoy.”

Allura's mouth did something curious that Keith only barely spotted out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he looked at her, it had smoothed back out again. She only nodded. "See that you do. Paladins, get ready. The Castle is on its way."

There was a rustle as everyone straightened, saluted (in Shiro's and a jaunty Lance's case) or nodded (Pidge, Hunk, and Keith). Then, everyone began disbanding. Keith could hear Lance talking to Hunk about hitting up the mess and getting some shut-eye before they arrived, which sounded like a good idea except that Keith had no idea how long they would be in transit, and admitting that would reveal that he hadn't been paying attention. Keith put his hand in the pocket of his jacket, feeling the worn-soft edges of a folded piece of paper, and sighed.

His eyes returned to Shiro, talking quietly to Allura and Coran. His thumb dragged along the edge of their marriage license.

He could ask Shiro.

After all, Shiro almost certainly knew Keith's focus had been elsewhere. He always knew.

Keith just... couldn't explain why he was so distracted.

Well, he could. But, it was easier and easier to just… tuck the urge to tell Shiro back, out of fear, out of the sheer, desperate need to keep him as close as possible without anything putting that at risk. After all, if Shiro didn't remember, or regretted it... There was no way to take marrying him back now. They were thousands, hundreds of thousands of light years away from Earth, with no truly reliable way to return. It wasn't like they could just ask for a divorce.

(Even contemplating it made Keith's chest feel like it was about to implode.)

So instead, he just stayed, selfish and dishonest and desperately greedy for the single good thing in his life that he could never really let go of.

"Keith?"

Shiro's voice broke him out of his reverie. Keith twitched, his hand crumpling the paper in his pocket. Forced, he relaxed, smoothed out the wrinkles as best he could without removing the license, and looked up at Shiro. "Yeah?"

His smile was warm, an uneven tilt across a handsome face, quiet and wry and perfect. Keith wanted to step into his space. To kiss the inviting corner of his mouth. "You okay?"

Keith breathed in and in and in, and nodded. "Yeah, Shiro. I'm fine. Go over the plan with me one more time?"

Neither of them mentioned the knowing turn of Shiro's smile as he did. So long as no one also mentioned the way Keith shifted to be closer or the way Shiro allowed it, it would be fine. Things would work out. As they did, as they always, inevitably did.

 

* * *

 

 _“Training sequence complete,_ ” rang out through the chamber, and Keith straightened up. Carefully, he stretched, feeling out the sore skin where a hit had landed on his back, before he reached out his left hand to a fallen Shiro. Mouth pressed into a thin line, Shiro hesitated for a moment, looking at it, before his right hand met Keith’s sweaty palm, and Keith tightened his grip to haul Shiro upright.

(He let his fingers linger when Shiro let go.)

Shiro clapped his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and it was an act of will that kept Keith from burrowing into his side, or at least leaning into him. He was always so warm, so solid, and part of Keith wanted so much to soothe his own aches with that warmth. “Good work out there today, Keith.”

“Yeah, you two were, like, crazy in-sync,” Hunk said, pulling off his chest armor. His hair flipped as he did, stiff with sweat. “Then again, you kind of always are.”

Keith shrugged with the shoulder not under Shiro’s hand, fearful of doing anything that could dislodge it. “You think so? We’ve trained together before.”

“Yeah, and so have Lance and I, but we’re not at the “I can read your mind” stage of being, I dunno, connected or something. It’s like you two are practically married.”

Keith’s heart stuttered. His shoulders stiffened. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the curious look on Shiro’s face. He could tell. Of course he could. Even if his hand hadn’t been directly on Keith’s body, he still knew Keith better than anyone.

Shiro was always able to tell.

“Let’s just hit the showers,” Keith said, ducking his head and ducking out of Shiro’s grasp as heat flooded his face. 

He made it into the changing room without suffering any more, and set himself to the mindless task of toweling sweat off his face and shedding his shirt. Keith hissed as he stretched that sore spot once more. Twisting got him nothing but more pain and the impression of violet spreading across his skin. A solid bruise, then. He'd have to be careful if they got called out to fly soon.

Footsteps echoed behind him, and Keith looked up just in time to see Shiro peel off his shirt and duck right into the showers.

Keith’s shirt tumbled from nerveless fingers.

Beside him, Lance let out a low, impressed whistle. Keith hid his flash of anger in bending over to pick up his shirt. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to see the look on Lance’s eyes, caught by the striking curves of Shiro’s body and hearing the constant echo of “ _That guy’s my hero”_  that tinged every interaction between Lance and Shiro.

Unfortunately, as ever, Lance never needed an  _active_  conversational partner to talk. Sometimes, it was a good thing.

Sometimes, not.

“Y’know, he’s kinda….” And Lance made a vague gesture in front of his chest, eyes going distant and lascivious all at once.

Keith knew exactly what Shiro was "kinda" like, but he grit his teeth and asked anyway. Because he hated himself. And sometimes, the best way to get Lance to shut up was to just talk back. “”Kinda?””

Lance clicked his tongue, his hands squeezing the air. “Dude, he’s mad ripped. I’d love to get my hands all over that.”

“He is your superior officer,” Keith growled. Damn it. He had known better than to start this conversation. He knew what some of Lance's looks meant. He had given Shiro enough of them himself. Ugh, he didn't want to talk about this anymore. He turned away, pulling his shirt back on.

“Is he really?” Lance asked. Keith always knew he was a little bad at reading the atmosphere, but this was pushing things to their reasonable limit. “Because I think, technically, we’re all the same rank now, and Allura is our CO? Well, I mean-“ and his next words saved his life because Keith was tensing to pounce, “I guess you’re right. He is the leader of Voltron.”

Keith let out a tight breath of air. It wasn’t his place anyway. He had no right to be possessive at all, and the violence wasn’t a good sign either. It was just. So much to have to deal with, when he was already feeling scabbed and raw.

Lance sighed. “Guess I’ll just have to dream about those sweet pecs then.”

The tiny thread of patience keeping Keith from doing anything rash snapped and he needed- he needed to move. Keith pushed off the bench and strode for the door, every step practically a lunge for how far he pushed it. He needed out. Now. He snapped, "You do that, I guess. Have fun fantasizing about someone who's too good for any of us."

Then, quietly from behind him, “Keith? Buddy?”

He did not stop.

 

* * *

 

Red was welcoming, as Red always was. It was comforting to be surrounded by low blue and red lights, the light dim against his eyes, and the low rumble of a curious mental connection smoothed over Keith’s jagged edges. He curled up in the command chair, his knees against his chin. And. Here, he let himself think.

Because if there was ever going to be anything as agonizing as the long months without Shiro, it was months with Shiro right there and not being able to touch him at all.

(Okay, maybe not at all, but Keith had to limit himself to certain touches. Arms, shoulders, upper back; these were safe. These were okay for him to put his palm to and let himself linger because they were close. They had always been close, and it would be easiest for everyone, Shiro included, to write it off as Keith needing reassurance that Shiro was still alive. Keith greedily took advantage of this until it was no longer possible to assign it to grief and it had become mere habit. Wonderful, miraculous habit.

Shiro’s mouth, which he had kissed only the one night and could not stop watching? His neck, with its beguiling curve and Keith had never looked at someone and thought the word “beguiling” before, which was a measure of how bad this was on its own? His scarred chest and the vulnerable expanse of his stomach and thighs where his soft shirts and shorts rode up in the early ship-mornings when Shiro managed to let himself rest?

Not safe. Not safe in the slightest, no matter how much Keith wanted.

Perhaps because of how much Keith wanted.)

When Shiro had been gone, there had been a sort of solace in the void of grief. A numbness that wiped through everything and focused Keith down to a single purpose because contemplating anything more was too cruel to bear. And now.

Now, there was this. Space, where before there had been none. Careful and circling, because for all of Keith’s greed, he didn’t know how far to push, worried that Shiro wouldn’t say no to him. And Shiro, driven by the half-memories still lurking in the unexpected corners of his mind, would never presume.

He had probably never meant it in the first place.

(They had been drunk. It was silly, just meant as something a little fun at the time, and they could’ve just gotten divorced when Shiro got back with only a few laughs as Keith hid the shards of his quietly broken heart and Keith hadn’t even known until he was gone. Now that he was back everything was the same yet everything had changed.)

Now, there was cruelty of the marriage license burning a hole between them that only Keith knew about.

“Ah, here you are.”

Keith jumped, trying not to make it obvious. He had- he was sure he had retracted the ladder to come into Red. There was a faint sense of smug apology in the back of his mind, the feeling that Red had only lowered the ladder because it was Shiro and didn’t Keith want to see Shiro? He was thinking an awful lot about him, after all. Red was only helping.

Damn meddling robot lions.

(Fuck. That was a sentence he could think in complete seriousness. His life was weird.)

Ignoring the pleased rumbling coming from his connection to his lion, Keith unfolded himself from the control chair, twisting to see Shiro-

Hovering right over him.

Keith tried his best not to twitch, but judging by the look on Shiro’s face, he didn’t quite manage.

“Are you alright? You ran off after training so quickly, I got worried about you.”

“I just… wanted to get out of my workout clothes,” Keith said. The excuse fell flat when Shiro’s eyes dropped to the plain black shirt Keith was still wearing, and Keith winced. “I uh… forgot that we kinda don’t have many clothes? To wear?”

At the mention of clothing, Shiro looked down at himself and frowned just a little. “I was meaning to ask….”

Oh.

Keith’s heart kicked up.

“Why… did you have my clothes at the desert shack? Don't get me wrong,” he said with a soft chuckle, "I'm grateful, but I was wondering."

Keith bit the inside of his lip until he tasted copper, bit harder because that still wasn’t enough. The words came up, tangling around his tongue. He wanted to know. Did Shiro remember what had happened between them, or was it simply a drunken decision that was better left to the people they were before all of this? After all, there was now an entire universe literally open to loving Shiro, so what was even the point of trying to stake an unacknowledged claim?

“What… do you remember?” Keith asked, aching and hating himself for the smallest furl of hope threading its roots into him. “From before you left Earth? Or, I guess, before you got back?”

Before the Galra, was on the tip of his tongue, but Keith couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Shiro hummed under his breath as his fingers trailed along the sky-blue light. He accepted the seeming non-sequitur as a matter of course instead of a complete aberration. He always did. “I… the mission out to Kerberos, for the most part? Most everything before that, but there are still some bits and pieces that just… don’t seem like they’re really there. I know Pidge. I remember the Holts. I know you, and training you. It’s just… Once the Galra showed up, I- I can’t think of most of that. It comes back to me in bits and pieces when I don’t expect them.”

Keith’s lips were numb. He licked them, not that it helped at all. “…Do you remember drinking before the Kerberos mission?”

Shiro laughed, louder this time, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he looked to the side, grinning at Keith. “Oh no, did we? Is that why I felt so terrible during take-off?”

Keith felt something in his chest concave, and it was a force of physical will not to flinch. He covered it with a laugh, wry and short. “Yeah. Someone gave you a bottle of tequila, and you were determined to drink it all in one night.”

“I think I remember that. So,” and Shiro turned fully to meet Keith’s eyes with his warm brown gaze. “What does this have to do with you having my clothes?”

“I’m getting there,” Keith said. “Just… when we were drunk, we… went down to F-…”

And he almost said it. Right then and there, he almost told Shiro about Father Mulcahy and their very drunk (“But very sincere,” a soft voice said in the back of his mind) wedding in the early hours of the morning before the mission took off. The kiss they shared, the bed they also shared, the feelings that Keith wasn't sure were shared, but were strong. At least from him.

But he couldn’t. His voice froze in his throat. And Keith, like the coward he had always known himself to be, deflected.

“Facilities. You updated me as your emergency contact and said I was supposed to get your things in case something went wrong.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “At the time, it was just a joke so I’d stop worrying. Then I got the call after… well, after, and when I got kicked out of the Garrison, I just took it all with me. I had it in the desert shack for a while.” Keith's mouth turned in the semblance of a smile, a weak and paltry thing. If he could just turn this back on himself, maybe Shiro would let it go. "I might've worn a few things every once in a while. I sometimes ran out of clean laundry. Sorry we couldn't bring any of it along."

Shiro hummed.

Keith had no idea what to do with that.

And then, Shiro smiled back at him. Said quietly, “I thought my shirt smelled a little like you when I first got it.”

And that?

Honestly, Keith had no idea what to do with that, either.

"Well," Shiro said with a rough sigh, pushing himself up. He offered Keith a hand. "Ready to go? Hunk found some local flora that he says won't make us too sick to eat, so we're having something besides just green goo for dinner tonight."

For a long heartbeat, Keith could only stare at the proffered hand. Its metal contours were unfamiliar, like many things about Shiro now. The fingers curled inwards towards the palm, hesitant, the creases and joints just as vulnerable as though they were flesh and blood. Keith took it before Shiro could retreat too far.

It was always, and ever, only Shiro.

"Yeah," he said, looking up. Past the arm. Straight to Shiro’s warm, brown eyes. "Sounds good. Let's go."

Keith let Shiro pull him to his feet. His hand lingered, as it always did, but this time, Shiro didn’t let go. This time, Shiro kept his grip, sliding it back to grasp Keith by the wrist. If he held Keith like this, would Shiro feel the thunder of his pulse, the way his heart thrummed to be touched? Could he just know? Keith warred between pulling back and prolonging the contact. Why was Shiro just staring at his hand? Was he dirty? Had he done something?

Shiro hummed, tapping at Keith’s ring finger, but he let go before Keith could say anything.

“Come on, Keith. Let’s not keep everyone waiting.”

And what could Keith do except follow, holding his own tingling wrist and wondering, with a ravenous heart, exactly how much Shiro  _did_  remember.


End file.
